Molly Evans

Assistant Producer of Digital News

Molly Evans is the Assistant Producer of Digital News at KERA. She writes, edits and curates news content and maintains the news Twitter feed.

Molly previously served as Digital Coordinator, maintaining KERA’s various websites and digital platforms, designing graphics, working on digital projects and offering technical assistance to the staff.

It’s the first of two elections for Texas voters this month. The May 5 elections are all about local matters. Some voters will vote on bond packages and decide whether to spend money on improvements like roads and schools. There are several races for city councils and mayors, as well as school boards.

Update, May 4: The Dallas Zoo has named its new baby giraffe, Witten, after retiring Dallas Cowboys tight end, Jason Witten.

The male giraffe, standing at 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 130 pounds, was born on April 25 at the Dallas Zoo. It’s the second baby for mom Chrystal, who gave birth to her first calf, Kopano, in 2014.

Tens of thousands of people, including the president, vice president and top Texas elected officials, are gathering in Dallas this week for the National Rifle Association’s 147th annual meeting. And protesters will be active throughout.

North Texas seems to be a prime place for dinosaur discovery, with numerous fossils spotted through the years by professional paleontologists and avid collectors alike. Among the most recent finds: a prehistoric crocodile that apparently liked to eat dinosaurs.

One Dallas police officer has died from his injuries and a second remains in critical condition after they were shot while trying to remove a man from a Home Depot in Northeast Dallas Tuesday afternoon.

Twenty-five years ago, David Koresh brought an end to more than seven weeks of standoff between his Christian extremist sect and federal agents surrounding the compound. He ordered his followers to pour fuel around buildings and set it ablaze.

The North Texas-based maker of bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like a machine gun, has announced it will shut down its website and stop taking orders for the devices next month.

The number of drug overdose deaths related to opioids is on the rise in Texas.

In 2016, more than 2,800 people died from an overdose, resulting in a 7.4 percent jump from the number of fatalities the previous year, according to the most recent numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.